SPACE: WHERE ARE WE GOING? : NASA ADMINISTRATOR BOLDEN VIEWS THE DRAGON CAPSULE

Saturday, June 16, 2012

NASA ADMINISTRATOR BOLDEN VIEWS THE DRAGON CAPSULE

FROM: NASA
Bolden, Musk and the Dragon
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, left, congratulates SpaceX CEO and Chief Designer Elon Musk in front of the historic Dragon capsule that returned to Earth on May 31 following the first successful mission by a private company to carry supplies to the International Space Station.
Bolden and Musk also thanked the more than 150 SpaceX employees working at the McGregor facility for their role in the historic mission.
This image was taken on Wednesday, June 13, 2012 at the SpaceX facility in McGregor, Texas.
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden joined SpaceX CEO and Chief Designer Elon Musk at the SpaceX Rocket Development Facility in McGregor, Texas, Wednesday to see the first commercial space capsule to complete a mission to the International Space Station.

WASHINGTON -- NASA Administrator Charles Bolden joined SpaceX CEO and
Chief Designer Elon Musk at the SpaceX Rocket Development Facility in
McGregor, Texas, Wednesday to see the first commercial space capsule
to complete a mission to the International Space Station.
Bolden and Musk also thanked the more than 150 SpaceX employees
working at the McGregor facility for their role in the historic
mission. SpaceX's Dragon capsule made history May 31 when it returned
to Earth after delivering supplies to the space station.

"The Dragon capsule is a tangible example of the new era of
exploration unfolding right now," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden
said. "Commercial space is becoming a reality as SpaceX and our other
commercial partners look ahead to future missions to the space
station and other destinations. I congratulate Elon Musk and the
entire SpaceX team again for this historic milestone."

While on-site, Bolden had the opportunity to view some of the 1,367
pounds of cargo the spacecraft returned to Earth from the space
station. Dragon is the only spacecraft capable of returning a
significant quantity of science experiments and cargo from the
station. Experiments will be given back to researchers hoping to gain
new insights provided by the station's unique microgravity
environment. The cargo was transferred to NASA June 13 and will be
taken to the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston for further
processing.

Dragon's journey to the station was SpaceX's second demonstration
mission under NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services
Program (COTS), which provides investments intended to lead to
regular resupply missions to the International Space Station and
stimulate the commercial space industry in the United States. The
mission began May 22 as the capsule launched from Cape Canaveral Air
Force Station in Florida aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. After its
maneuverability and abort systems were tested, crew members of
Expedition 31 aboard the station grappled the capsule and berthed it
to the orbiting laboratory.

Dragon, its exterior scorched by the heat of re-entry, splashed down
in the Pacific Ocean May 31. SpaceX recovered the capsule immediately
and transported it to McGregor, where engineers unloaded cargo and
removed hazardous materials. Dragon will be shipped to SpaceX
Headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif., later this year.

On Thursday, Bolden and Musk will be at SpaceX Headquarters and speak
with reporters at 9 a.m. PDT. They will see the Dragon spacecraft
that flew the first COTS demonstration mission in December 2010,
during which SpaceX became the first private company to recover a
spacecraft after it orbited Earth. They also will see a prototype
Dragon spacecraft being designed to carry astronauts to the space
station as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program.

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STAR FLASH

What caused this outburst of V838 Mon? For reasons unknown, star V838 Mon's outer surface suddenly greatly expanded with the result that it became the brightest star in the entire Milky Way Galaxy in January 2002. Then, just as suddenly, it faded. A stellar flash like this had never been seen before -- supernovas and novas expel matter out into space. Although the V838 Mon flash appears to expel material into space, what is seen in the above image from the Hubble Space Telescope is actually an outwardly moving light echo of the bright flash. In a light echo, light from the flash is reflected by successively more distant rings in the complex array of ambient interstellar dust that already surrounded the star. V838 Mon lies about 20,000 light years away toward the constellation of the unicorn (Monoceros), while the light echo above spans about six light years in diameter. Image Credit: NASA, ESA

THE SPIDERWEB GALAXY

Looking like a spider's web swirled into a spiral, Galaxy IC 342 presents its delicate pattern of dust in this image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Seen in infrared light, faint starlight gives way to the glowing bright patterns of dust found throughout the galaxy's disk. At a distance of about 10 million light-years, IC 342 is relatively close by galactic standards, however our vantage point places it directly behind the disk of our own Milky Way. The intervening dust makes it difficult to see in visible light, but infrared light penetrates this veil easily. IC 342 belongs to the same group as its even more obscured galactic neighbor, Maffei 2. IC 342 is nearly face-on to our view, giving a clear, top-down view of the structure of its disk. It has a low surface brightness compared to other spirals, indicating a lower density of stars (seen here as a blue haze). Its dust structures show up much more vividly (red). Blue dots are stars closer to us, in our own Milky Way. New stars are forming in the disk at a healthy rate. The very center glows especially brightly in the infrared, highlighting an enormous burst of star formation occurring in this tiny region. To either side of the center, a small bar of dust and gas is helping to fuel this central star formation. Data from Spitzer's infrared array camera are shown in blue (3.6 microns), green (4.5 microns) and red (5.8 and 8.0 microns). Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

JUMPING TO WARP SPEED

This cockpit view of a hypothetical spacecraft traveling at eight-tenths the speed of light shows the visual distortions that would be experienced at such high speeds. The star field is actually being wrapped toward the front of the craft in addition to being significantly blue-shifted. NASA Glenn leads the Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Project, NASA's primary effort to produce near-term, credible, and measurable progress toward the technology breakthroughs needed to revolutionize space travel and enable interstellar voyages. NASA Lewis (now Glenn) Research Center, Cleveland, Ohio.